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It will then consider what impact
these distributional inequalities have
with regard to those who may play a
significant role in attempting to write
the future. We close by offering some
possible ways of dealing with inequality
that involve technologies.
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
It is often the case that certain social
groups (identifiable by gender, class,
race, physical ability, etc.) are omitted
from official/institutional visions of the
future created by experts (politicians,
managers, interaction designers),
be it intentionally or not. However,
because these visions shape policies
and technologies that affect everyone,
these social inequalities raise questions
of power. Moreover, the unofficial
futures of everyday experience, hopes,
dreams, and imaginations are often not
considered in these future visions.
Efforts to incorporate everybody
in views of the future often result in
dystopian images, highlighting current
differences in exaggerated ways. Science
fiction literature offers some clear
examples. J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel
High Rise presents us with a fictional
interpretation of class and futures,
which is useful when assessing how
social inequalities within the everyday
are constructed and consumed. In the
novel, class divisions are physical (the
higher the floor in Ballard’s tower block,
the higher the class of resident). Aldous
Huxley’s Brave Ne w World (1932) also
portrays fundamental inequalities at the
heart of the imagined society, though
here these are built into genetics and
conditioning, not just architecture.
While these fictional futures extend
and emphasize current inequalities, in
many ways fragments of utopia exist
already. For example, in the Western
world, the majority of people can
access clean drinking water in such
sufficiency that they flush their toilets
with it; calorific food is available in such
quantity that they can become obese;
and free health care is available in
some countries (e.g., the U. K. or Cuba)
to treat the consequences. It might be
naive to expect utopia to exist only
as an endpoint or a final destination.
Such a view highlights that we should
recognize and cherish these fragments
of utopia as and when we find them, and
realize that it may be necessary to fight
hard to keep them.
SPATIAL INEQUALITIES
The rural-urban divide is one spatial
axis that highlights differences
that are apparent across potential
elements of the future. New modes
of transportation, such as car clubs
or Uber, are increasingly available in
